


Buildup

by RunawayDragons



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:55:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25580947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayDragons/pseuds/RunawayDragons
Summary: Prequel to In Need Of Translation, from Fenris' perspective.
Relationships: Fenris & Female Hawke, Fenris/Female Hawke, Fenris/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 22
Collections: Mera Hawke - Force Mage and Disaster Human





	1. Chapter 1

He hates to admit it, but he likes the way her eyes look when she smiles, their color reminding him of calm seas in warmer places than Kirkwall. She was making jokes again, a habit of hers that used to irritate him often when they’d first started working together, but now he knows the jokes are often a form of armor for her. He’s not sure of the exact moment he’d stopped thinking of her as just another mage meddling with magic and power, it had snuck up on him, all he knows for sure is one day she showed up at the mansion and he had actually felt himself feeling glad she’d stopped by. 

He’d written her off at first, assuming it was all an act, but time after time she’d go out of her way to show her priorities were not what he had assumed. So he had thawed, and she’d done her best to win his friendship. When she was around he tended to not feel quite so heavy, an effect she seemed to have on most of her friends. But that was Hawke, she shouldered the burdens of others without hesitation, staff in her hands, and a witty one liner on her lips, ready to disarm and charm her opposition, while always ready to listen to those she cares about. While he hasn’t always agreed with the choices she has made, he has learned to respect them, as she never made those decisions lightly. 

So now he is friends with a mage, a thing he never thought would happen. He also never thought he’d get to live in one place this long since escaping Danarius and his hunters, but here he is, living a life, and that was mostly thanks to her as well. As if she can tell what he’s thinking, Hawke casts a quick glance over her shoulder at him, skin crinkling around the corners of her eyes as she offers him a impish wink, clearly pleased with herself and how well she is doing in her negotiations with the merchant Varric had sent her to see. He fights back the urge to smile in response, making sure to maintain his cold and foreboding appearance as her muscle. She didn’t technically need an escort, but Varric had asked Fenris to keep an eye on Hawke, the dwarf concerned his friend would get herself into trouble if left unsupervised, their impending expedition to the deep roads making him more paranoid than usual. 

Once the negotiations are done, Hawke swiftly moves on to their next errand, clearly feeling the pressure of how little time they have left until they go into the deep roads. Her black hair swings at the base of her shoulder blades in rhythm with her hips, as she makes her way back towards lowtown. Realizing where his gaze is resting, Fenris feels his ears get hot, and quickly starts assessing the area for any threats to distract himself. Self conscious that this isn’t the first time he’s caught himself watching her hips, the memory of Isabela teasing him earlier in the week returns to the front of his thoughts. 

_“You know, touching can be a lot more fun than looking.” Isabela had teased in a whisper, as they’d been patrolling with Hawke._

_“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He had replied, careful to keep his expression from betraying the fact she’d called him out on something he hadn’t been conscious he’d been doing._

_“Pfft, I don’t believe it for a second. You’d have to be blind to miss the way those move, it’s hypnotizing!” Isabela had said, giggling at the end, clearly amused with herself._

_Fenris had managed to utter a genuine sounding scoff, despite his subconscious temptation to agree with her._

_“I mean, I’ve tried enticing those hips my way, but she hasn’t been interested in that. Called me her sister the other day, biggest mood killer I’ve dealt with in a long while.” Isabela mused, fingers idley playing with her necklace._

_“You, though? You have a real shot, she’s been dropping not very subtle hints for months!” She teased, using a tone of clearly false jealousy._

_Fenris had let the silence stretch, unsure of what to say. He knew Hawke had flirted with him, but it hadn’t really occurred to him that those ovatures had been genuine. She was a mage, and he’d been vocal on his distrust of magic and those who used it. As he’d grown to know her better, and even trust her in some things, he’d just assumed she’d been behaving that way for fun, or as a way to make him open up?_

Ever since that day he’d been paying more attention to their interactions. He’d even asked some subtle questions, gathering information. His conclusions had left him in the current mess he’s in, but it isn’t something he wants to stop. Hawke definitely had meant every word she’d offered him, anyone actually paying attention had noticed her interest in him. Her mother even had dropped a comment, mentioning how her eldest held him in high regard, a twinkle in her eye and a knowing expression on her face. 

Sure, Hawke would visit all her friends regularly, but when she visited them she didn’t always have one of their favorite foods, or a bottle of wine, with her. Sometimes she would, but not every visit; Merrill still talks about when Hawke had brought her favorite soup from the Dalish camp as a surprise, but that had happened once, not every week. 

He’s lost count of the times he’s returned to the abandoned mansion to find some sort of small parcel, or a basket packed with bread and cheese, waiting for him on the table near the fire. Maybe sometimes there was dog drool on it, a clear sign that Doug, her hound, had made the delivery, but there was never any doubt who sent it. Realizing just how much she seems to care for him by doing these things, it had hit him like a high dragon to the chest. 

So when she’d asked him earlier that day if he’d come on the expedition, he’d said yes instantly, no hesitation at all. She’d beamed at him, her eyes almost completely hidden by her smile. He hadn’t known what to do with that level of happiness, it felt foreign, not bad though, so he hoped he could get her to smile that way again sometime.


	2. Chapter 2

He does not like the deep roads, this is not a surprise. He really does not like that Anders was included in their party, even though he understands why Hawke asked the apostate to join them, his usefulness as a healer, and his abilities as Grey Warden coming in handy even on their first day in the long abandoned depths. And he does not like that Hawke isn’t joking around as much, how her smiles don’t reach her eyes, their normally bright color dimmed to a grey-blue like the ocean during a storm. 

By the third night underground, everyone is a bit frayed around the edges, and covered in a mixture of giant spider guts, blood, and grime. The morale of the crew around their fires isn’t great, Bodhan’s voice a little too cheery, as he serves out their dinner. Fenris is hungry but the thought of eating while smelling like rotting entrails is not appealing. So he looks around and realizes he doesn’t know where Hawke is, causing instant concern. His hand wraps around the hilt of his sword as his eyes search for any sign of her. By chance, or perhaps luck, he catches movement out of the corner of his eye and realizes she and her hound are leaving camp. 

It isn’t even a conscious decision, he just gets to his feet and slips into the shadows, following her at a discreet distance. They had already encountered many dangers down here, she was being foolish by leaving camp alone, so he’d keep an eye on her. She walks in silence, holding something in her hands, staff stowed in its place on her back, Doug faithfully by her side. Fenris treads carefully, on alert for any sign of danger. Perhaps that’s why he misses how she detects him. 

“You might as well come up here with us, since you’ve invited yourself along.” She calls over her shoulder. 

He grunts a response, cautious, as the lack of humor in her words tell just how worn out she must be, his stride lengthening until he’s caught up. 

He peeks over to what she is holding, and finds it is one of the maps they’d been using. Hawke studies it carefully and then forges ahead, intent on whatever it is she is looking for. Silence stretches between them, but it isn’t awkward. Their steps mirror each other, as they easily find a pace that works for the both of them. Fenris stays vigilant, but also takes advantage of her focus on the map and where they are going to study her without risk of being caught too easily. Her dark hair isn’t loose as usual, she’d put it into a simple braid once it had become too full of cobwebs and dirt. There is a cut along the edge of her jaw, a smear of poultice dried on top of it. By the looks of it, it had been a deep gash, but Anders’ magic had clearly helped it greatly. Fenris quickly shoves aside the flicker of gratitude towards the apostate that realization brings to life, and returns his thoughts to what might be waiting for them around the corner. 

It isn’t what he’d been expecting. 

“Ah! It’s still here! Can you believe it, Doug?” Hawke says excitedly, as she begins rolling up the map and storing it carefully in the leather case she has tied to her belt. 

The hound barks happily in response, and then charges ahead, leaping into the water of the great underground lake that stretches before them. Ruins surround most of its shore, remnants of old docks, and bathing areas. Clearly this had been a place for travelers to refill their canteens, bathe, and trade, once upon a time. Fenris marvels at the lanterns that still burn bright with ancient dwarven enchantments, their soft golden light making the place seem oddly welcoming. The place had held up very well, despite centuries of abandonment. 

“I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go get clean!” Hawke says, the sound of her armor hitting the ground interrupting Fenris’ train of thought. 

He glances to his right, and finds her only dressed in her smalls and a smirk, eyes focused on the expanse of water in front of them. She doesn’t give him time to respond, she just dashes toward the shore, following in her hound’s footsteps. Fenris just watches, his feet glued to the ground, as she stops once she’s knee deep and just lets herself fall backward into the water, joy radiating from her. 

_“WOOF”_ says Doug, as he bounds up towards the elven warrior, bouncing playfully in invitation. 

Fenris looks at the dog, and then down at the pile of armor and clothes next to him, his mind spinning. Once again he acts without really thinking, scooping up her belongings and bringing them with him as he walks closer to the edge of the water. A large boulder, half in the water, makes the perfect place for him to rest her things, leaning her staff against it, in easy reach just in case she should need it. 

“Thank you, Fenris! I should have thought of that.” She calls out softly, as she resurfaces from the water once again. She treads water, keeping her head and shoulders above the surface, and smiles at him in gratitude before speaking again.

“You really should come in, there is nothing quite like losing three days worth of blood and bile to make you feel like a new person!” 

_“Ah-boof!”_ adds Doug, clearly agreeing with his human, as he plows back into the water happily paddling lazy circles as Fenris considers what to do. 

His sword gets unsheathed and left on top of the boulder in easy reach. His armor gets neatly piled next to hers, and then he smoothly dives in, barely making a ripple in the water. He can feel the grime fall away as he swims under the surface, the lake warmer than he’d expected, but now that he thinks about it, there is probably a hot spring or some ancient dwarven technology that keeps it this way. 

When he finally surfaces, Hawke greets him with a knowing smile, and a flirty wink that is hard to not acknowledge. He lets his usual mask of disdain slip away, letting his jaw unclench, and the muscles in his face relax. She reacts to this by blushing, and Fenris has to dive under the water again to hide his urge to smile in response. 

The two swim for a good ten minutes, exploring the area that seems to have once been a pool rocked off from the main part of the lake, before doing the responsible thing and leaving the deeper water to go back to shore and retrieve their armor to clean it. Hawke lights a fire using her magic, and scrounges around until she’s found enough bits of forgotten things to make a crude rack to help things dry faster by hanging them close to their fire. 

Fenris sits near the fire, clad in his smalls and his freshly washed but still damp undershirt, enjoying the heat and the feeling of being clean once more. He hears Hawke messing around in the satchel she’d brought, chastising her hound for getting in the way. Once she’s done, she finds a spot near him and sits down, now wearing a shirt that has been repaired so many times it looks almost patchwork, over her still damp smalls. In her hands are two hand pies, the kind he’d seen Mistress Hawke hand her children before they left on patrol many a time, he’d remembered them mostly because the smell had always been enticing. 

“They’re the last two, I have been saving them, and I think now is the time to eat them. Here!” Hawke says as she passes one of the savory pastries his way. 

Fenris accepts her offering and just stares at it, feelings of surprise and something else he can’t (or won’t) name bubbling up in acknowledgement of her kindness. She’s doing it again, giving him something, with kindness, and no expectations of something in return. She could have easily hid her meal and let him wait to eat until they’d gone back to camp, but no, she chose to share with him. Warmth pools in his stomach, as he slowly eats the delicious pie, savoring the taste of something better than camp rations. 

“You’re smiling? Maker’s balls, if I’d known all it would take was one of Mother’s pies I would have given you one sooner!” Hawke says, her tone a mixture of pleased surprise and good humor.

Fenris does his best not to choke on his last bites of pie, only partially succeeding. Hawke is even more entertained by this, and giggles while offering him her waterskin. He drinks and then clears his throat, doing his best to restore his composure, and almost has it until he makes eye contact with Hawke, who is clearly struggling to contain her laughter. She stifles back another giggle and ends up snorting accidentally, which completely ruins any chance of containing her mirth any longer. Unable to help himself Fenris joins in, his deep laugh joining hers. The two of them laugh until their faces hurt, and it takes a good few minutes to regain their control, and their breath.

“Oh, thank you, Fenris, apparently I needed that.” Hawke says once she has regained her composure, hand swiping across her face to clear a tear of mirth from her eyes. 

“I’m happy to be of service.” He replies dryly, causing Hawke to pause, then locks eyes with him, she sees the glint of humor in his and smiles, clearly pleased that he’s messing with her. Fenris quells the urge to smile back. He feels dumb for getting so much joy out of surprising her, but he can’t seem to help himself. 

Silence stretches between them again, still not awkward, but this time with a hint of electricity that wasn’t there before. Neither seems to want to break it, so they watch the fire a while longer, sitting a little closer than before, while she rubs her sleeping hound’s head, and he carefully wipes down his blade with the oiled rag he keeps tucked in a pouch on his belt. He sneaks a few glances her way when she focuses on the fire in front of her, taking note that the merry crinkle around her eyes has returned. He likes the feeling that gives him, knowing he had a part in cheering her up. 

When everything is mostly dry, they finish dressing and rearm, not breaking their silence, but somehow communicating without words in an easy way that comes far more naturally than he thought possible. A shift of her shoulder and he knows she needs help with a buckle on her breastplate. She fixes the harness for his sword after he reaches for it and only looks her way briefly. Once again they fall into a kind of easy sync that both baffles him and makes him feel oddly comfortable as they walk back to camp.


	3. Chapter 3

They fight back to back, surrounded by rock wraiths while Varric and Anders do their best to chip away at the vulnerable ancient one they’ve awakened. They manage to destroy them all before having to dash behind a pillar as the creature blasts the cavern again. Fenris takes this moment to glance at Hawke. He notices there is blood streaming down from a cut just below her hairline, her skin is paler than usual as well.

“Hawke? Are you alright?” He asks, concerned.

“I’m just lovely, thanks. This is just a scratch, don’t worry about me. But if you want to be helpful, maybe call me by my first name for a bit? You know, just in case we die here, I’d hate to go never getting to hear you say it.” She answers, careful to keep her tone light, but the smile on her face doesn’t reach her eyes, and as she says the last part her tone takes on a hint of wistfulness that alarms him. Dark humor from her isn’t new, but this feels different, like a final wish. He doesn’t like that. 

Without hesitation, he takes a hand off his sword and reaches up to gently wipe the blood on her face away from her eyes, so she won’t get blinded. His eyes meet hers and holds them while he begins to speak.

“Well, since you asked so nicely, Mera, of course I will. But we won’t be dying just yet, I’ll make sure of that.” Fenris tells her, letting his hand return to his blade as he finishes.

Mera blushes slightly, her smile returning briefly, but it doesn’t last long as another wave of rock wraiths surge forward to fight them. They break from their cover and continue the fight, Fenris fighting with a renewed ferocity that helps turn the tide in their favor.


	4. Chapter 4

Fenris sits before the fireplace in the abandoned mansion he calls home, and watches the flames in the fireplace, letting his mind wander. Hawke had been there earlier, and she’d left him with a lot to think about. If he was honest with himself, he’d had a lot to think about since escaping the deep roads alive. It had been months ago already, but some days it felt like yesterday, and today was one of those days. The firelight and dampness in the air reminding him of the nights spent back there. 

He hadn’t seen as much of Mera since their return, she’d visited one evening early on to check on him, but then had been scarce until now, as she’d been busily working with Varric to get the old Hawke estate back in her family’s possession, as well as resecure their status as nobles once all the treasure and antiquities had been recovered. Her feverish need to stay busy didn’t fool him, or Varric, for that matter, the both of them knowing it was her way of trying to handle her brother joining the templars, and the fallout with her mother from that happening. He and the dwarf had talked about it at the tavern after their weekly card game. Which is a conversation that had mostly happened because Varric was avoiding talking about his own family drama. 

So Fenris had been pleasantly surprised to have Mera show up at his home today, her first visit in weeks, she’d said she’d just wanted to check on him, but there was unsaid words that conveyed it was more than that for her. He’d let some of his guard down and he had had a genuine conversation with her, something he didn’t realize he’d been missing until in that exact moment. And when she had left, he’d felt instant loss. All of this was an emotional journey he’d not expected, and now here he sits, feeling like he needs to figure out more than just what to do with a life that he’d never expected to have. 

She’d listened to the tale of his time at Seheron, really listened, and had discussed it with him in her usual humorous way, clearly trying to cheer him up while still caring about his feelings. And that was it, she kept caring, even when hearing about some of the awful things he had done. Things that he still felt shame about, but didn’t seem to make her care for him any less. That level of concern for him and his feelings left him with that awkward but pleasant warmness again, and he didn’t know what to do with that. And even though he didn’t get to see her in person as much, she’d made it clear all this time that she still thought of him, as Doug showed up at least once a week with a basket full of Mistress Hawke’s hand pies, and whatever else she thought he might need at the time. She kept giving, while all he’d done in return is have her back whenever she needed him to fight with her. He felt like he owed her even though she’d never asked him for more. 

He’d played with the idea of telling her to stop, that he didn’t deserve all this attention, but then his brain reminded him that might hurt her, and he couldn’t abide that thought. And if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t actually want her to stop caring for him this way. Andraste help him, he didn’t want her to stop flirting with him either, or giving him those looks when she thought he wasn’t looking that made the hair on the back of his neck prickle and the blood rush to the tips of his ears. He’d known her for years now, and he’d gone from barely being able to tolerate her presence, to feeling like he’d lost a part of himself when she wasn’t around.

_Oh._

Fenris pauses that thought, and grabs the bottle of wine on the table, taking a swift drink as realization of what these thoughts could mean begins to dawn on him. 

She was a mage, a powerful one at that, he reminds himself. He’d seen her send an entire band of bandits flying without even breaking a sweat, or even using her staff. It should have terrified him, or made him wary, instead the memory only makes him feel proud of her, as he remembers she’d done it to save the lives of innocent people who’d been attacked on their way home. That emotion floods back.

_Oh…_

He stuffs it away again, trying to ignore it, as it would make his life far more difficult, plus it couldn’t be possible. And then he sees it, on the mantel, where she’d been leaning only an hour ago. A beautiful red apple, left exactly where he’d see it while relaxing in his favorite spot. He’d mentioned once, in a small conversation over a year ago, that he liked apples, and hadn’t had a good one since he’d come to Kirkwall. The realization that not only had she remembered, but she’d obviously gone out of her way to get one that would be better than just good, to make him happy, breaks the dam of denial he’d shoved his emotions behind. Instantly he becomes swamped by the thing he’d tried so hard to ignore.

_Oh no._

_**He loves her.** _


End file.
